


You can run away with me anytime you want

by PhyllisDietrichson



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Cabin Fic, Camping, Friends to Lovers, M/M, NightSwimming, Pining, Stargazing, idiots to lovers, just a lot of going camping in an evergreen forest okay, making mountain pies in the campfire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:27:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhyllisDietrichson/pseuds/PhyllisDietrichson
Summary: But sometimes Ryan scrolls through Shane’s instagram when his socials go quiet and their text convo takes a long pause and Ryan knows it’s because Shane is off camping somewhere, and Ryan can’t deny that he feels the tug of his absence.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 55
Kudos: 228





	You can run away with me anytime you want

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write fic of Ryan & Shane going cabin camping in late summer, complete with stargazing and night swimming, and here it is finally. Thank you to the delightful denizens of the bridge club for prompts, encouragement, and inspiration. Thank you to [sequence_fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy) for beta reading. 
> 
> Thank you to ancient wise seers and modern astronomers for naming the stars and giving them stories.
> 
> Title from My Chemical Romance's _Summertime_ because why not.

Shane should have said no. He should have made himself say no. Just looked at Ryan’s pleading face, kept his own expression carefully neutral, and made up an excuse for why he couldn’t possibly take Ryan camping. Any excuse — it doesn’t even matter if it’s believable. Ryan wouldn’t question him; he’d understand not to press any further. But he would _know_ and that’s what gave Shane pause. If Shane had white-lied his way out of it, Ryan would sense that he’d somehow, once again, lingered too long at a boundary that Shane had carefully hung with signs along the treeline reading NO TRESPASSING and Sharpied on a map reading HERE BE DRAGONS and tried to peer inside anyway. And he’d get disappointed eyes for a while.

Shane can’t stand it when Ryan gets a bad case of disappointed eyes. He’s so bad at hiding it. When he’s really in its throes, Ryan looks down to conceal it (badly), shoves his hands in his pockets, finds reasons to work on projects by himself. Their never-ending text conversation goes quiet for a while. Shane sends Ryan silly bird videos, but all he gets back is a single smiley face emoji and nothing else. Ryan spends more time with his oldest friends to soothe it. A day or two passes, and Ryan’s back, easy grin intact and their friendship (mostly) just the same as before.

Shane will just know that he’s pushed his friend away (again).

If he pretends it’s no big deal and jokes and joshes all the way down, Ryan will be so _pleased_. Just the thought warms Shane through and through. So Shane says yes. It’s Ryan’s first time camping, _real_ camping, and Shane wants him to have a good time, so he starts planning immediately. He doesn’t want to put a first-timer through having to learn to carry a hiking pack and all the heavy equipment wrangling that going tent-camping would necessitate, so he looks for a cabin. It’s not too long before he finds what looks like a perfect one — it’s got running hot water hookups, a stove, and a couple outlets where they can charge their phones so it’s not _so_ rustic it’ll scare Ryan off, but it’s out by itself in an evergreen forest on a mountain so it’s remote enough to suit Shane. He can already see himself seated on one of the Adirondack rockers on the porch, enjoying the birdsong and pine-scented breeze. He doesn’t let himself think too much with anticipation about Ryan telling tall tales on that porch, leaning back on the banister, alternately crossing his arms and spreading them wide with delight to illustrate his stories. He places that image carefully in his pocket, where he keeps years’ worth of those images and memories of Ryan, tucked away to keep him safe.

He makes the booking, then texts Ryan.

 **Shane:** ok get ready for a camping adventure

 **Ryan:** Got it. Anything I should know to pack?

 **Shane:** the usual

 **Ryan:** Right. Remember how I don’t know what that is.

 **Shane:** hiking boots. more socks than you think you’ll need. extra clothes.

 **Ryan:** Are we going to make s’mores? I want to make s’mores.

 **Shane:** we can. i’ll add it to the list

 **Ryan:** There’s a list?

 **Shane:** a scout’s motto. be prepared. that means a list.

 **Shane:** any other requests?

 **Ryan:** I want to earn a scout patch to add to my triple-dub jacket. How do I do that?

 **Shane:** a badge? i don’t know what to do with that. we’ve already got Watcher patches on them.

 **Ryan:** I want to be a real outdoorsman. Just, teach me how to be a lumberjack, is what I’m asking.

 **Shane:** we can’t cut down any trees, ryan. it’s literally a tree preserve.

 **Ryan:** Okay, then how do I reach Hawk Scout status. I spaced out that time you told me about leveling up in scouts.

 **Shane:** it’s called an eagle scout. i’ll think about the badges but let it be known that you are a weird dude.

 **Shane:** any other requests?

 **Ryan:** Nah. You’re the expert. I trust you know what you’re doing.

 _Do I though?_ Shane wonders.

~~~

They both take a half-day on a Friday in mid-August, frantically finishing up loose ends to hand over to Katie and Steven so Ryan can drive them both out for the long weekend. They stop off at Shane’s since he has the bulk of actual camping equipment. He loads up the car, not letting Ryan help, so Ryan stays in the driver’s seat, craning his head towards the rearview mirror as Shane tosses what seems like piles and piles of clanking gear into the trunk. Shane pushes the trunk closed with a thud, catches Ryan’s eye in the mirror, waggles his eyebrows and aims a shaka his way. He rolls into the passenger seat, puts his sunglasses on, and nods to Ryan. “Ready when you are.”

“I’m not sure I _am_ ready. What was all that stuff?”

Shane places a finger to his lips. “Shhh. Top secret stuff. You’ll see.”

Ryan pulls the car into gear.

It’s a few leisurely hours to drive to the grocery store nearest the cabin. Just kidding — it’s hellaciously crawling L.A.-area traffic for a few hours — what else is new? Ryan rubs his neck and shoulders with one hand, reminding himself to unclench when the traffic finally thins out and the road narrows down to a yellow-striped two-laner lined by rangy trees, occasionally interrupted by wide grassy clearings. _It is a vacation, after all,_ he reminds himself. _Relax._

Ryan still can’t quite believe how easy it was to talk Shane into taking him camping. Shane had made it sound like so much fun, always coming back from his trips with stories of the antics he and his friends had gotten up to, accidentally making inside jokes he then had to explain to Ryan. Telling that idiotic story about sitting around the campfire, then eating a June bug on a dare. He would return sunburned, mosquito-bit, but undeniably lighter, like a weight had been lifted off his spirit.

It makes Ryan a little bit — _envious_ isn’t quite the word. He just feels like he’s missing out on a jigsaw puzzle piece of Shane he hasn’t clicked into place yet. He knows work Shane, energetic when he has the beginnings of a creative work project spread out before him; diplomatic when he’s working in the planning stages with coworkers; infuriatingly non-committal when pressed to make a decision. He’s been up late nights with him on Unsolved shoots, both of them punch-drunk from sleep deprivation and the exhaustion of travel and the pressure of making shows. He knows movie night Shane, karaoke Shane, barcrawling Shane. Oh, does he know barcrawling Shane, he thinks with a grin, sneaking a glance at Shane in the passenger seat, who is singing along to the duderock he’s playing through the car stereo, one long leg tucked up under him.

But sometimes Ryan scrolls through Shane’s instagram when his socials go quiet and their text convo takes a long pause and Ryan knows it’s because Shane is off camping somewhere, and Ryan can’t deny that he feels the tug of his absence.

Ryan wants to know _that_ Shane, too. He just wants to finish the puzzle, he tells himself. Get to know his best friend better, that’s all.

They pull into the parking lot of the grocery store as Shane finishes writing a grocery list in his all-caps scrawl on a scrap of paper. He puts his pen behind his ear and assigns Ryan the grocery cart and himself the task of loading it up from the shelves, marking off his list as he goes. In the self-checkout line, Ryan studies Shane’s profile, trying to not be obvious about it, feeling his face warm with the effort. Shane’s been skipping haircuts since they started Watcher so his hair is long now, dark caramel waves wrapped with a green paisley bandanna in an effort to keep it tamed. Ryan is struck with the sudden impulse to touch it. So he reaches out and thumbs a wayward strand, finally tucking it behind Shane’s ear. Shane quirks an eyebrow at him, amused, but otherwise finishes bagging the groceries and hands a couple bags over to Ryan to carry.

~~~

Shane had thought, by going camping with Ryan, that he could mitigate things between them somehow. That if he gave Ryan this trip he asked for, that maybe Ryan would be put at ease with him again.

He should have known it would be like this. When Ryan had sat him down months ago and told him about his plan to quit Buzzfeed and start up a new company himself, Shane had felt his heart clutch in his chest at the horror of endless future days of showing up at a Buzzfeed office with no Ryan there. He’d found himself nodding, saying “Yes, of course. It’s not even a consideration,” when Ryan asked him to come along with him on Watcher Entertainment, Inc. And Ryan had looked so pleased, his serious expression giving way to a sunshine grin of relief, that Shane had never second-guessed himself that this was what he needed to do with his life.

He just. Hadn’t realized _why_ he needed this until later.

And now, since founding Watcher together with Steven, Ryan is inescapable. Well, that’s the wrong word — he doesn’t want to _escape_ Ryan.

It’s just that before, at Buzzfeed, when Shane felt a little too poked and prodded and _looked at_ by his friend, he could work on projects with other people. He’d leave Ryan to his Unsolved meetings and planning and managing his entire team and get a little peace and quiet in his own head, humming along busily writing and editing and creating and staying far, far away from the friendly but fraught scrutiny that Ryan subjects himself and others to.

Ever since they started Watcher, Ryan is up in his grill all day every day, and there are tender things he keeps inside himself that Shane doesn’t look at. Just, ever. And here is Ryan, shoulder to shoulder with him, pressing and plucking at the cache of faceted feelings Shane keeps under lock and key. There are some things that he has to keep to himself, away from the light of day, for fear they’ll shatter in the sunlight.

And he’s so grateful that Ryan chose him to be his friend and cofounder but now he’s feeling pursued and ransacked and he just. Ryan is just a lot. He maybe needs to think about it less overall, for his own sanity, is all. He swallows to clear the lump in his throat and flips the car stereo playlist over to a new song, one from a band he knows Ryan can’t stand, to regain his equilibrium. Ryan squints over at Shane, then rolls his eyes at him and returns his eyes to the road. Shane leans to turn the volume up, drowning out his own thoughts and scoring a curled lip of annoyance from Ryan. Shane, behind his sunglasses, declares victory over his own brain for another day.

~~~

The sun is low in the sky, setting the clouds pink when Ryan turns the car from the two-laner to a steep road that carries them up and up. The forest of tall dark green fir trees envelops them. Shane rolls his window down all the way and gets this blissful look on his face. The scent of pine fills the car. He leans back into his seat, the stress of the workday visibly draining away. Ryan sneaks a look at Shane, loose-limbed and happy, and feels a new piece snap into the jigsaw puzzle he’s constructing.

~~~

They pull up into the cabin’s very long gravel driveway and Shane emits a low whistle. It’s a larger place than he’d expected from the bare-bones listing. They both shoulder their bags from the trunk and walk up the wooden porch stairs. Ryan takes in the view of evergreens against the fading sunset while Shane opens the screen door and unlocks the house. The walls are plain treated lumber, the color of cedar. The door opens into a main living room area with a huge brick fireplace. The kitchen is off to the left, and to the right are multiple bedrooms.

“Your call,” Shane says. “Which bedroom do you want?”

Ryan paces the room, looking in all the doors. He can’t decide. “All of them.”

“What?” Shane asks.

“We’re here more than one night. All the beds are made up. We’re sleeping in a different room each night,” Ryan decides. “Then we’ll know we didn’t miss out on sleeping in the room with the best view because we’ve slept in all of them.”

“That’s… weird.”

Ryan scoffs. “Like you ever unpack your bags anyways when we stay at hotels. What do you care? It’ll be an experience.”

He strides into the smallest bedroom. “This one first,” Ryan points at Shane. “You’re staying in this one, too.”

Shane leans in the doorway, then throws his head back and laughs. “These are bunk beds. This is supposed to be a kid’s room.”

Ryan tosses his duffle on the dresser, brattily determined now. “I call the top bunk. That means you’re bottom bunk.”

“You complain that I snore,” Shane protests.

“Yeah, you do. But if a bear comes to eat me, this way he’ll go for you first,” Ryan points out.

“Seems fair.” Shane drops his duffle on the floor in the room. “Help me unload the car?”

~~~

After they finish filling up the fridge with groceries, Shane hands Ryan a plastic lighter. He forgets to breathe for a moment when his fingers brush Ryan’s. He busies himself with digging through the kitchen drawers, looking for the spoons, willing his heartbeat back to normal. “Wanna be on campfire duty? We need the fire to be heated up to hot coals so we can make dinner, which will take awhile,” Shane nods in the direction of the backyard.

Ryan clicks the lighter and it flares up. He extinguishes it and nods. “Got it.”

“You get started and I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Shane waves a shooing hand at Ryan.

Ryan wanders out the screen door at the back of the cabin and rifles through the stacked cords of wood outside. The gathering dusk doesn’t hide the look of preoccupation on Ryan’s face and Shane shakes himself from staring and turns to gathering up supplies in the kitchen.

When Shane finally pushes through the door walking backwards, his arms full with a reusable grocery bag and long-handled metal cooking implements, he spins to carry everything to the campsite and is greeted by the sight of Ryan trying unsuccessfully to light a log as big as his head with the butane lighter. Shane places everything on the split-log seats arranged around the concrete fire ring, watches Ryan fondly for a minute, and goes to find a box of dry kindling and a handful of dry pine needles.

Ryan’s obvious delight sends cascades of warmth through Shane when the tinder and kindling finally light the pyramid of split wood they’ve carefully set up together. They drink beers, listening to the crickets begin their symphony while waiting for the wood to burn down enough to start cooking. Night falls softly around them.

Shane unabashedly grins at Ryan’s expressions of amusement when Shane presents him with one of the two mountain pie makers he’s brought out. They busily lay buttered bread and pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni inside the metal shell of the makers, close them up, and use the long wooden handles to nestle their absurd pizza concoctions in the fire to cook.

After Ryan raids the kitchen so they can try out ham and cheese mountain pies, somehow they end up in a competition to make the grossest concoction possible. Ryan handily wins with his anchovies, havarti cheese, and Hershey’s chocolate mountain pie creation. Even Shane had to concede Ryan’s win against his baked beans and blueberry mountain pie entry.

Shane doesn’t want to be the first one to suggest they turn in, enraptured by Ryan, laughing by the firelight. They make dessert mountain pies out of cans of cherry pie filling and eat them messily, licking their fingers. Ryan is the first one to give in, yawning and patting his tummy, declaring bedtime. Shane ducks his head and agrees reluctantly, following Ryan into the cabin.

~~~

Shane’s comfortably splayed across the bed, idly reading a book pulled down off the shelf full of the random kinds of books you find in vacation houses. The only electric outlets are in the main room, not the bedrooms, so his phone is charging in the other room and he can’t scroll through twitter in bed as he usually does.

Ryan gets in, his hair wet from the shower. Shane can smell the bodywash he uses, some kind of ocean scent, fresh with ozone. His shoulders fill out the worn tee he’s wearing. He climbs the little ladder up and the whole bed bounces when Ryan throws himself into his bunk.

“I haven’t slept in a bunk bed since I was a kid,” Shane hears Ryan say above him.

Shane discards his book on a low table. He pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “No? You didn’t have to bunk the beds in your college dorm?”

“No, I lucked out and got a pretty big room freshman year,” Ryan replies, his voice sounding a little pinched.

Ryan hiccups a sound above him. “I remember being, like eleven, staying over at a friend’s house. We got permission for me to stay over, and his big brother was at summer camp or something so I got the top bunk. I remember climbing up to it and thinking, _whoa, I can see the whole world from up here, it’s so tall.”_

Shane doesn’t mean to laugh, but he doesn’t quite catch himself before his short exhale.

Ryan, catching on, chuckles encouragingly. “Can’t relate, Shane?”

“Afraid not. The woes of a ridiculously tall little kid,” Shane clears his throat. “Sorry, I interrupted. Continue.”

“Anyways, we watched Gremlins that night and scared ourselves silly, until the power went out.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, the Santa Ana winds means random power outages. A power line had blown down nearby. I have this dim half-memory of carrying one of those green glass bowls that looks like it’s from the ‘70s, half full of popcorn, up to one of the big second-floor windows with my friend to watch the fire engines roll in down the street. We could see the power line that was down and throwing white sparks, and the fire engine lights were flashing red and blue. I remember thinking it was beautiful.”

“Rely on your cinematographer's eye to turn a residential emergency into a romantically-lit scene.”

Shane can hear the shrug in Ryan’s voice, encouraged by the backhanded compliment. “There wasn’t an actual fire. They were just blocking the road until the power company could get there.”

Ryan shifts in the bed above. “Now you — last time you were in a bunk bed. Freshman year?”

Only one story surfaces in Shane’s mind. “I don’t remember if it was the last time specifically, but I do remember _a_ time.” Shane chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “I was at this, kind of afterparty in the dorms after the winter formal. I went to the dance earlier with just a big group of people so I didn’t have a date, per se. But there was this one guy in the group. I think I was interested in him but hadn’t admitted it to myself. He had a girlfriend at the time, too, like. Complicated. Looking back, he had been flirting with me all semester, too, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, I remember there was no place to sit in this tiny dorm room full of people so we piled onto the bunk beds. There I was, folded up, sitting on the top bunk with, like, five other people, including him, all of us balancing our beers and trying not to spill on our suits. He looked so good, tie all loosened and his cuffs unbuttoned. But he was there with his girlfriend and I had years yet of figuring myself out left to go. So.”

Ryan’s head pops down from above. “Dude.”

Shane nervously laughs. “And can you believe, the entire ceiling was decorated, with like, strings of beer lights and pink plastic yard _flamingos,_ which I kept knocking my head into. It was the most ridiculous —”

Ryan looks serious, a deep line tracing between his brows, despite being upside-down, blood rushing to his head. “Did you just tell me something about yourself that I didn’t know before?”

“Um. Did I?”

Ryan rolls back up onto the bed, out of sight. “I didn’t know guys were, you know, an option for you.”

Shane goes quiet. He takes his glasses off and puts the frame’s arm in his mouth to muffle his reply. “You didn’t ask. I guess it never came up. Why, does it matter?”

Ryan sounds strained. “I’m your friend. I care about you. Of course it matters.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nice to hear,” Shane chews the inside of his cheek again, feeling the raised scar he’s put there.

“How can you say it didn’t come up when I told you all about my bi awakening? It didn’t occur to you to share with the class?”

“I didn’t want to make something you were going through all about me. I don’t like talking about myself, you know that.”

Shane can hear Ryan punching a pillow and turning over in bed. “God, Shane, go to therapy,” his muffled voice floats down to Shane.

“I’m gonna — just,” Shane reaches to turn off the lamp, coating the room in darkness.

Ryan shifts in the bed above him. After years of overnights in haunted houses with Ryan, Shane doesn’t have to see him to know how he’s settling himself on his back to sleep, crossing his arms, tucking his chin into his chest. “Good night, Shane,” he hears in a voice that clearly says _this isn’t over, buddy_ above him.

He manages not to sigh as he turns on his side and stares at nothing in the dark. Just as if this cabin were one of their Unsolved location shoots, he wonders about what Ryan sees in the unlit room. If Shane sees nothing but air and dust and impossibilities, Ryan sometimes swears he sees intangible longings take shape and walk across rooms. Shane wonders what that’s like, if he could see that too, someday.

~~~

Ryan opens one eye the next morning and is greeted by the sight of rain sheeting down the window and the sound of fingers of rain tapping on the roof. He yawns, rubs his face, and climbs down off the bed to figure out what time it is. Ryan shoves his glasses on and reads the time as half-past nine from the small wall clock by the door. Shane isn’t in his bed.

Ryan grabs an orange from the kitchen. The coffee pot on the table is still warm, emitting delicious-smelling steam. Ryan lets himself enjoy it for a second. He misses coffee. He goes to put water to boil on the stove for herbal tea instead.

He looks out a front window and sees Shane under the roof of the cabin’s porch, smoking and looking at something far in the distance. The summer thunderstorm kicks up a bit, heaving the green leaves of the trees with a gust of cool air. Shane hasn’t noticed him yet, so Ryan takes him in. His leg is crossed, ankle-to-knee, and he leans forward, contemplatively holding the cigarette to his lips between thumb and forefinger, knocking the ash off into a beat-up aluminum can on the porch floor. The humidity from the rain forces the smoke low, rolling in thin curls out to the banisters. He tugs on the collar of his red buffalo plaid shirt, layered over a t-shirt of some obscure band, then leans his head in his free hand, two fingers rubbing his jaw. His half-full coffee mug steams on a side table.

Ryan makes his tea, carries the mug to the threshold, and takes a calming deep breath.

Ryan pushes the door open and nods to Shane. “Morning.”

Shane straightens his shoulders and goes to put his cig into the can.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan waves vaguely.

“Uh. Somebody left half a pack in the kitchen drawer, and, well,” Shane shrugs.

“It’s fine,” Ryan reassures him. “I’m never getting the smell of woodsmoke out of my clothes as it is.” He listens to the rain.

Shane takes a drag and guardedly watches Ryan settle himself into an Adirondack chair.

Ryan should make Shane talk about what he brought up last night, but he can’t do it while Shane is suddenly smoking and wearing that haunted expression on his face. The number of times Ryan has seen Shane with a cigarette he can count on one hand. Ryan contents himself instead with pulling apart his orange, segment by segment.

He promises himself that later he can cook up some scrambled eggs and make sure Shane’s meal to start the day isn’t just black coffee and nicotine.

~~~

They go back inside and find a game of Uno and play it side-by-side on the couch. By the time Ryan lays his fourth Draw Four on the coffee table, cackling, the rain slows from a steady thrum to a light patter. They both abandon their game, Ryan to watch the clouds part from the window; Shane because, well, he always abandons games when Ryan is winning. By the time the clouds are clearing, Shane is humming while loading up a backpack with snacks, water bottles, and other things that Ryan hasn’t noticed because he’s been trying to get a reaction out of Shane with no results.

Ryan wants to know they’ll be okay, and he’ll know that they will be if he can get Shane to look at him again. It’s not Ryan’s fault the only way he knows how to do that when Shane gets distant like this is to endlessly throw verbal jabs at him.

“This is going to be the real outdoorsman Shane Madej experience, right? I expect nothing less.”

“Sure,” Shane agrees mildly, rounding up equipment into his backpack.

“No, I mean it,” Ryan insists. “No cell phones. No GPS. And we’re going to light a fire for survival using nothing but a twisty stick.”

Shane does throw him a wary look but then resumes packing. “A twisty stick?”

“Yeah, y’know,” Ryan flattens his palms and rubs them together. “Like Tom Hanks in Castaway.”

“That’s a spindle. We can’t light any fires on the hiking trail. You’ll just have to content yourself with the campfire here when we get back,” Shane replies distractedly.

“Time to earn you your orienteering badge. I just need to find my compass — oh. Um.” Shane digs through a duffle and pulls out his compass, its glass now smashed and the pointer bent. Shane lays the busted compass on the coffee table regretfully. He scrubs a hand over his face, then looks at Ryan.

“It’s fine. We’re doing this the hard way now, is all. I hope you’re good at reading maps.”

“The best,” Ryan says, jutting out his chin.

“I love to hear it,” Shane says. He points at Ryan, “because you’re gonna prove it today.” He puts on his hat and leads Ryan out to the trailhead.

  


Shane points out the East Loop Trail on the paper map, marked out by green blazes on tree trunks. Shane points out to Ryan where to find the blaze markings, broad green X’es painted roughly at eye level on wide tree trunks. He’d picked a trail marked as a beginner-to-intermediate-level hike, so after forty-five minutes or so, he hands the map completely over to Ryan, letting him lead on the trail finding. Shane can feel himself getting sun-drunk from both the dappled sunshine rippling through the trees and Ryan’s bright, delighted smiles between their conversational joking.

They follow the green trail for another hour or two, lazily arguing the pros and cons of Joel Schumacher movies, until Ryan stops short. “Hey, there’s a lake!” Ryan launches himself in the direction of the lake’s edge. Shane can feel the beginnings of — not fear, but maybe concern — prickling the back of his neck. As they stand at the shore, watching turtles in the shallows, he borrows the map back from Ryan. There’s not supposed to be a lake on this trail. Shane scans the map, seeing that, actually, there aren’t any lakes marked on the map within the preserve at all.

Ryan’s attention is pulled away from the turtles when he notices that Shane is glaring fixedly at the map. Shane pulls up a long blade of grass and puts it in his mouth, worrying it into spins with his tongue.

He bumps Shane’s shoulder with his own. “Problem?” he asks.

Shane shakes his head. “We seem to have walked ourselves off the map, little guy.”

Ryan’s pretty sure that’s not a good sign. “So, we’re lost.”

“We’re not lost,” Shane scoffs.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Um,” Shane rubs a long finger along his lower lip, refusing to meet Ryan’s gaze. “Not exactly.”

A small line of panic inches up Ryan’s spine. “So we are lost.”

“No,” Shane protests. He looks back towards the direction they came. “We haven’t been bushwhacking a new trail, just following ones that already exist, so logically, if we follow this trail,” he points vaguely in a direction away from the lake, ” then we should be okay.”

Ryan holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender and starts off in the direction Shane indicated.

They follow this not-their-trail trail for a while, but they emerge into a clearing — to find that they’ve been following the odd oblong shape of the lake. Now instead of being on the shallow side of the lake, they’re where the water glistens green-blue and deep. Shane checks his watch — it’s already eight o’clock and darkness is fast approaching. He sighs, remembering that, since this was only supposed to be an afternoon hike, they don’t have flashlights with them.

“I don’t love to say it,” Shane ventures, “but we should stay put for the night. Stumbling around in a dark forest is not going to get us back to the cabin anytime soon.”

Ryan stares at him, disbelieving. “You’re crazy. We can’t just sleep on the ground.”

“I don’t know that we have much of a choice. Sunrise is real early in August — it won’t be that long. Few hours, really.” Shane really hopes his tone is calming.

“We’re going to die out here, aren’t we,” Ryan says in a strangled voice.

“No, definitely not,” Shane switches his tone to authoritative, sensing that’s what Ryan needs right now. “We’re going to be slightly inconvenienced and we’re going to miss our beds for one night.”

“Gonna get murked by a bear.”

“The bears aren’t interested, Ryan. At most we might see a little baby deer, but you’d have to actually be quiet for ten minutes if you wanted to see any wildlife.” Shane immediately regrets the irritation he lets creep into his voice, but Ryan is chastened into silence so he doesn’t say anything more.

Ryan, determined to quell his mounting alarm, presses his mouth into a thin line.

~~~

Night falls with purples and blues. The crisp heat of the day recedes, giving way to a warm humid night, wrapping them like a heavy blanket. The crickets start their chanting, soothing and yet still so surreal to Ryan. Ryan’s body is exhausted from hiking all afternoon and his brain is worn out from panic.

“You don’t have to protect me, Shane. It’s okay that we’re incredibly lost, but you do have to admit it to me.”

“I’m not, and we’re not, and everything’s going to be fine.”

“Square with me, Shane.”

“I’m always square with you,” he scoffs.

“That’s not true,” Ryan says.

“It is!”

It’s Ryan’s turn to scoff now. “So you planned this. That we would get hopelessly lost the second night of camping. What kind of sadistic bastard are you?”

“Yeah, Ryan, I wanted to scare the shit out of you,” Shane says dryly. “Is it working?”

“Fuck yeah, it’s working,” Ryan says. He tries again. “I know when you’re bullshitting me. I don’t know why you even try it anymore. I can see right through you, you know.”

“Can you,” Shane says. He looks up at the waxing moon.

~~~

Fine. _Fine._ He decides to believe Shane. Shane wants him to think everything’s fine, and that’s clearly bullshit, but okay. If that’s what Shane needs. Ryan munches on his granola bar in grudging silence. Shane has found a tree to sit up against a little ways away, his hat discarded on the grass, while Ryan puts his back to him and watches the lake, hoping its gentle ebb and flow will quiet his nerves.

Ryan forgets himself when lightning bugs begin glowing in the forest. As it gets darker, their glow spreads into the clearing and then twinkles over the lake. It’s an extraordinary light show. _We might die here,_ Ryan thinks, _but at least it’s a pretty place to go._ The lake reflects the moon and stars and fireflies, shimmering invitingly. He can hear the lake swishing gently against the reeds.

For Shane, watching Ryan see the fireflies light up is the best gift Ryan has given him in a while. Ryan turns himself halfway to Shane and says “Do you see this?” to him, half in awe and half in disbelief. Shane smiles at Ryan and interlaces his fingers on the back of his own hand, feeling the bark of the tree against his hands, wanting to reach for Ryan but stopping himself. It’s enough to see Ryan like this, balm for the tender spot inside his chest Ryan’s been poking at all day.

It might be hours or minutes, Ryan’s not sure, before he has another impulse he has to obey as soon as it pops into his head. Ryan stands and in a stroke grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head. He undoes his belt and rolls it up into a loop.

Shane flinches, accidentally scratching his knuckle open on the tree bark. “What are you doing?” He hopes Ryan doesn’t see the flush he can feel starting on his face.

Ryan neatly piles his clothes on top of the backpack placed against the tree Shane’s sitting under.

“I’m going swimming. It’s been a long day and I want to. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” Shane replies, gape-jawed.

Ryan sits on the ground to tug off his shoes and socks and adds those to the pile of his clothes.

“You can join me if you want,” Ryan says, not hiding the _and I dare you to_ in his voice.

He pulls off pants and boxer-briefs together, chucks them in the clothes pile. He locks eyes with Shane, whose face closes down as he looks away from Ryan’s naked form.

Ryan walks to the edge of the lake where the grass gives way to rushes. His body is gorgeous, tanned and golden in the moonlight. Shane watches him walk in thigh-deep, then lean forward and slip into the water. Shane isn’t half-hard from watching Ryan. He’s not. He shifts his pants fly uncomfortably. Ryan dips under the surface and resurfaces, treading water. He gives a whoop, yells in Shane’s direction, “It’s pretty nice. Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Shane yells. _Goddammit,_ he adds under his breath. He unbuttons his shirt, pulls off the t-shirt under it, and tugs off his jeans and underwear. He splashes in awkwardly, then strokes forward to meet Ryan where the lake deepens. The lake is warm from the day’s sunshine. It does feel good to rinse off the trail dust. Shane self-consciously bobs his way over to Ryan’s side, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“I’m glad you — we — took the time off so we could do this.” Ryan tries. Shane can hear him trying, and it makes his heart crack apart a little.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Shane says. The long day has done its work on Shane’s self-control and his world has narrowed to nothing more than Ryan, resplendent in the moonlight.

“I’m sorry I got us lost.”

Shane moves closer, wanting to reassure him. “It’s not your fault. I should have been paying more attention. Besides, look where we are. We’d never have seen this place if it wasn’t for you.”

“I mean, it’s no theme park, but it is beautiful out here.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Shane dares to say, grateful Ryan is looking up at the sky and not at Shane’s face, where he’s afraid the truth of his words is too easy to read. He can’t see anything other than Ryan. He’s beautiful here, his eyes softened and dark hair wet, the water tracing paths along his shoulders. Shane wants to reach out and trace a path with the rivulets along Ryan’s biceps with his own fingertips. Ryan turns to Shane, stretching. He makes one of those silly little noises of his. Something shorts out inside Shane’s brain.

Shane crushes himself into Ryan, tilting his head to find Ryan’s lips and kiss him breathless, his hands finding Ryan’s jaw to gently hold him close. Ryan stills, then relaxes into Shane’s embrace, kissing back gently, fitting himself against Shane like he belongs there. Shane can feel Ryan hardening, the line of him pressing into his stomach. Ryan finds Shane’s back with his hands and it feels to Shane like he’s holding on for dear life. And oh, Shane didn’t know for how long he’s needed this, but his body knows and is reminding him, lighting up everywhere Ryan touches. Ryan _whimpers_ and opens his mouth, deepening the kiss, and Shane didn’t know anything could _be_ like this.

Then panic thunderstorms through Shane’s brain and he breaks off the kiss. Ryan, looking under the influence as all hell, his mouth reddened and soft, reaches for Shane to pull him back in. Shane slips his grasp and retreats to the shore of the lake, his heart pounding just as loudly in his ears as the dark water he splashes with his arrhythmic swimming.

  


“Wait. Shane!” Ryan watches, bereft, as Shane makes his way to dry land and pulls his jeans on, lit up by the dim moonlight.

Ryan silently swims closer. Shane’s found a tree stump to sit on. His mind is banging pots and pans loudly at him, taunting him with all the reasons this is not something he can have, ever.

“I’d say that I was taken by surprise, but somehow a part of me isn’t surprised at all,” Ryan says, feeling his way through the thicket of words. “That’s new.”

“I don’t. I don’t know what happened. Sorry,” Shane says as he pulls his t-shirt on. He’s still barefoot in the grass, the blades tickling his feet. He should try to remember how socks and shoes work so he can put them on, but he’s not there yet.

Ryan feels a familiar energy drawing him to Shane in the cooling summer air. He wades out of the water, shakes himself, and pulls his clothes back on. Shane turns away to give him his privacy and resolutely watches the pine trees bow and rise in the evening breeze. His clothes are damp from pulling them on so quickly after getting out of the water. He unknots his bandanna after picking it up from the grass and uses it to try to dry the tendrils of his wet hair dripping onto his shirt.

Ryan makes himself cautious, tentative. He knows that Shane gets like this, like a cornered cat ready to dash off, and he has to proceed slowly. He sidles up beside Shane and places a firm hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Shane. We don’t have to talk about it just now, but I want you to know — we’re okay.” Shane despondently looks up at Ryan, then back to the ground. Ryan figures that’s the best response he’s going to get right now. He smiles a little bit at his own visual image of Shane as a cat, thinking of the times Obi has refused to let Ryan pet him just because he _wants_ it just a little too much. _Just let me scratch behind your ears a little bit, you idiot,_ he thinks ruefully at Shane. Instead he takes his hand off Shane’s shoulder, suppressing the urge to run his fingers through Shane’s hair.

~~~

The adrenaline of his kiss with Shane is fading, giving way to the heavy fatigue that’s been humming along all day, pressing down on Ryan. He can feel his body giving in to how tired he is even though he’s still scared to be outside, ready prey for packs of wild animals, instead of tucked safely into bed indoors. He still has that odd weightless feeling from swimming in his limbs, and an all-consuming drowsiness in his head. Shane had always let him scooch in closer to him to sleep in haunted houses. He knows how comforted Ryan is by his presence. He hopes Shane won’t deny him that now.

"We're going to be stuck out here forever," Ryan miserably lays his head on Shane's chest. He clutches his fingers in Shane’s shirt, drawing comfort from the soft fabric and the warmth of Shane’s body.

"No, just a short while. It'll be fine," Shane's hands are folded behind his head, so he nudges Ryan with his shoulder. Ryan feels him take an unsteady breath.

“It will look better in the morning, Ryan. I promise.”

Shane points to a glittering point in the sky, directly above. Ryan rolls over so he can look upwards, head on Shane’s stomach.

"D'ya see that? One of the brightest stars in the sky. Deneb, its name is. Ptolemy recorded that star in ancient times as part of the constellation Cygnus. People have been looking up to find it ever since. Kings, queens, astronomers, regular people like you and me. Ancient astrologers tracked it to tell their customers' futures. Think about how long it's been there, just biding its time. It's seen so much — the founding and fall of great cities, the potters working in small villages at night after the heat of the day, ship captains steering their ships by night. And all that time, it's just doing its star thing, shining brightly every summer, like clockwork. Imagine, if it could talk, what tales it could tell. It really makes you think. Compared to all those centuries, eons really, what's a little bit of time spent just a little misplaced in the woods? It's nearly no time at all."

Ryan doesn't respond. His breathing has evened out.

"Ryan?" Shane half-whispers. He's asleep, his face peaceful. Relief spreads over Shane to see Ryan’s face finally unlined with worry.

Shane cautiously brushes Ryan's bangs out of his face, then interlaces his fingers behind his own head. Regarding the star again, his voice low, he continues.

"In Greek myth, Cygnus was desperately in love with Phaethon. Oh, he was just a wreck about it. Phaethon was a brave, brash, just headstrong dude, always getting himself into trouble. Phaethon had no idea Cygnus was more than just his best friend. They lived in each other’s pockets, sure, but somehow Phaethon just didn’t see it. Cygnus never did get the chance to tell him. Or maybe Cygnus was too afraid to tell him, scared he’d lose his best friend forever if he did. One day Phaethon did something heedlessly stupid and the gods killed him, more or less for daring them to. Cygnus was so inconsolable for so long the gods took mercy on him and placed him among the stars."

Shane's heart twists in his chest as he does his best to ignore it. "Do you think the Greek gods will take mercy on me someday, Ryan?"

~~~

Shane naps on-and-off, catching glimpses of the night sky as it wheels above. He holds very still, barely breathing, so Ryan can use him as a pillow. His back will ache from lying on the bumpy ground, but Shane doesn’t care at all. Instead of sleeping, he stores up more memories for safekeeping. Ryan sleeping gently, the fireflies glimmering less and less as the sky shifts from black to navy to purple. Ryan’s hand twisted up in the hem of Shane’s shirt when he stretches and turns in his sleep. Shane counts Ryan’s fingers, then his knuckles. He tries to memorize his eyelashes. It’s the first time in his life Shane has ever cursed the beginnings of birdsong in the early morning hours because it means he’s running out of time to tuck this moment safe inside himself.

The air shifts and Ryan starts to stir. Shane feels his breathing quicken before Ryan opens his eyes. Ryan stares at him blankly — a moment passes before he puts together where he is. Then he aims that sunshine smile straight at Shane and then sits up, yawning. Shane pulls himself up on his elbows, feeling the ache from lying on the ground starting up his spine. Ryan blinks hard a few times, righting his dried-out contacts still in his eyes, his hair wild from sleep and humidity.

Before he can say good morning, Shane nudges at him with his thigh, places a finger to his lips, eyes bright, and jerks his chin in a direction behind Ryan. Ryan follows his gaze to a couple of deer placidly drinking on the far side of the lake. He smiles at the sight, then catches Shane’s eye again to reassuringly nod, communicating that he saw what Shane wanted him to. He offers his hand to Shane and pulls him up to sit with Ryan. Together they meet the sunrise dawning with delicate pink skies and the mist glimmering above the water. Ryan can feel Shane’s breath tickling the back of his neck.

The spell is broken when a medical helicopter buzzes overhead, causing the deer to startle and spring away into the forest cover. Shane, mentally calculating, stands to pull the trail map out of his backpack and watches the helicopter recede intently. He flips the trail map over once, twice, then excitedly calls Ryan close. They huddle over the map, heads together. There had been blue signs with ‘H’ in white lettering along the route they’d driven to the cabin, Shane remembers. He points to the small inset map. Here’s the route number of the road, and the hospital is off the map but according to those signs it would be down here, and he waves his index finger at a corner of the map. Anyway, we’re off the trail map and that means we’re over here, basically next door, where it’s marked ‘Private Land’. All we have to do is follow the trail going southeast and we’ll run right across the East Loop Trail again.

Shane is visibly triumphant but Ryan plaintively looks up at Shane.

“But Shane, how will we find southeast? We don’t have a compass!” Ryan says.

“Ryan —” Shane starts.

“We’re going to have to figure out how to make smoke signals so we can be rescued, aren’t we?” Ryan spirals.

“Ryan —” Shane tries again.

“Going to have to alert the emergency services and then —” Ryan continues.

“Ryan!” He catches Ryan by the shoulders. “Look at me. Where does the sun rise? North, south, west or east?”

“In the east.”

“And where is the sun now?”

Ryan points to the sunrise, mutely. His arm hangs in the air.

“And if we remember where our cardinal directions are in relation to each other and we turn you, just so,” Shane uses his hands on Ryan’s shoulders to turn Ryan a bit to the right. “There you go. Southeast.”

Ryan turns to look at Shane skeptically. “We go that way.”

“Yes,” Shane confirms. “We go that way.”

~~~

Ryan feels more than hears Shane’s sigh of relief when the cabin comes back into view.

They drop their bags on the floor of the main room and Shane sags back against the brick of the fireplace. Ryan throws himself on the couch, more grateful for soft furniture than he ever thought possible.

“Well, little buddy,” Shane says, relief in his eyes, “Guess things can go back to normal now.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees, but for the first time, he sees something else concealed behind Shane’s relief. He flips the puzzle that is Shane over in his mind, hiding the distraction of the illustration so he can see the single missing piece. He tilts his head, reflecting, feeling his way there. It’s the look of apprehension Shane finally gives him when he’s been silent for a minute or two that punches Ryan in the solar plexus. Because now Ryan sees the regret hidden behind it.

Ryan stops on an intake of breath. “My God. You’re in love with me.”

“No,” Shane protests guiltily, “It’s not —”

“Yes!” The last puzzle piece snaps into place. Ryan has gathered up all of Shane’s pieces to himself now. And now he understands why he wanted all of Shane in the first place.

“You absolutely are. Why didn’t I know this? The planning, the thought put into this — you _hate_ planning things, you hate doing it so much you keep dumping all the work scheduling on Steven or Katie. But here we are, on a vacation trip that you planned entirely by yourself, not even for work, just, because I _asked_ you to, and I can’t believe — “

“Don’t, Ryan,” Shane crosses his arms.

Ryan leans forward accusingly. “What, I’ve caught you out by saying something true, now you want things to go back the way they were? That’s not gonna happen. It’s just not,” Ryan springs off the sofa and advances on Shane.

Shane would beat a hasty retreat if there was anywhere to go. “We were out-of-our-minds exhausted last night. And seriously lost. We were more lost than I was willing to admit.” Shane flaps his hands at him. “It was an intense experience, but it doesn’t have to mean anything. It came out of nowhere, and it was just a lot of nothing, anyway.” Shane swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then he looks away.

“But it does, Shane. It does. _Mean_ something. It means something to me. I think it means something to you, too.”

Ryan takes a step toward Shane. Shane re-crosses his arms and shifts his jaw, right to left, still not meeting his gaze.

“If it came out of nowhere, then why was a part of me not surprised? If it’s really nothing, then how come you’re this rattled about it?”

“Let me tell you something. You kissed me last night. No,” Ryan corrects himself, “We had our first kiss last night. And you’re right — first kisses, they don’t have to mean anything. They can just be impulse and nothing more.”

“But a second kiss, Shane. The second kiss is a _choice_. The second kiss, you’ve had time to think about it. To think about how much you need the other person to kiss you back. The second kiss means _everything._ ”

Ryan pushes forward. He places his hands on the wall, on both sides of Shane’s shoulders, and looks up into his best friend’s brown eyes.

“I want to kiss you now, Shane. Can I?” He breathes, softly, so close now that the long hair that softly curls at the nape of Shane’s neck flutters. “There’s no take-backs on the second kiss, so you know. Not that I’m ever letting you take back the first,” he warns, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He wonders if Shane can hear it.

Shane drags his eyes back to Ryan’s, their depths not hiding his yearning this time. “Yeah. Just — yeah, Ryan.”

Ryan plants his hands on Shane’s shoulders to push himself up. Shane is frozen in place. He can’t reach high enough so his lips land awkwardly on Shane’s, catching the corner of his mouth. It’s such an awful kiss it makes Ryan laugh into Shane’s mouth, unfastening Shane as he dissolves into the laugh with him. Shane hunches down to make it easier for Ryan, his hand clasping behind Ryan’s ear, and Ryan gets that dizzy feeling he gets from the first descent of a rollercoaster ride. His heart has dropped to his stomach but he doesn’t care because now Shane’s hands have traveled down to his waist, pulling him in close.

They kiss until Ryan places his thigh between Shane’s legs and leans to press himself into him, feeling Shane’s cock hardening under his clothes. He opens his mouth and Shane responds hungrily. Lust shimmers through Ryan as he drops his hand down to cup Shane gently, and Shane moans into Ryan’s mouth in response. Ryan kisses his way along Shane’s clavicle, the chalky taste of the limestone lake water still on his skin. He looks up to catch Shane’s gaze and he can feel his face ease into a smile at the devotion he sees there.

Ryan prods at Shane, walking him backwards into the middle bedroom with the unslept-in double bed. When they walk through the doorway, Shane turns, captures Ryan by the shirt, and kisses him pushed up against the doorframe, his hands holding Ryan at the back of his neck, rubbing soothing patterns into his skin with his fingertips. Then he looks around, Ryan watching him confusedly, until he sees the trunk at the foot of the bed and steers him in that direction.

Ryan sits on the trunk while Shane sits on the floor to take his boots off. “You said no boots on the bed, Ryan,” Shane says to him. Ryan just laughs. “Did I say we were going to bed?” he baits him. Shane looks startled for a moment, until Ryan smiles that smile that Shane would break the world for. “I was kidding you, Shane. I’m not kidding you now. Please take me to bed,” he says, pupils blown wide with need and his lips red from Shane’s kisses.

Shane kneels to untie Ryan’s sneakers and pull them off, then he climbs up Ryan’s knees to push his shirt hem up and set a line of kisses along his exposed waist as Ryan tugs his shirt off over his head. They stumble into the bed together, Ryan pushing Shane onto his back.

Ryan places his body so it looms over Shane on the bed. He presses his forearm across Shane’s chest, holding him there. “It’s all up to you now. Just tell me what you want and it’s yours. You just have to. Say it.”

Shane tries to press himself up towards Ryan, but Ryan’s arm restrains him. “Ryan, I.”

“Yes?” Ryan murmurs sweetly, with just a hint of brattiness.

“For God’s sake, Ryan,” Shane gasps. His hands come up to grasp Ryan’s arm, long fingers encircling him.

“Yeah, Shane?” Ryan drags out the vowels.

“Jesus Christ. Touch me, Ryan. Please,” Shane pants.

  


Ryan leans down to kiss Shane as he works his hand over Shane’s chest and then his groin, pulling small noises from Shane along the way. He fumbles with the buttons of Shane’s button-down, frustrated. Shane laughs and pushes Ryan’s hands further down his body, invitingly, unbuttoning the shirt himself and wriggling it off. Ryan spans his fingers along the hair low on Shane’s belly as Shane pulls his t-shirt off, pressing his body down to kiss along his exposed shoulders and his chest. Shane’s chest is flushing as Ryan rolls himself full on top of him and licks into his mouth, hands scrabbling down Shane’s sides to his hips. Ryan grinds against him, enjoying the feel of his long lean body against his. Shane pushes his hands between them to undo Ryan’s pants and tug them down by the belt loops. Ryan wriggles to get free of his pant legs.

Ryan holds Shane’s head tenderly in his hands, thinking hard at him: _I hope you can forgive me for not seeing all of the pieces of you before_ with his mouth on Shane’s.

“Please take my pants off,” Shane breathes, his long fingers trailing over Ryan’s back, making him shiver.

Ryan breaks off kissing him and pushes himself up with his forearms on either side of Shane’s head. The desire in the look he’s rewarded with makes him go weak in the knees. He nestles up to Shane’s side and reaches for Shane’s jeans.

Ryan feels like he’s been asked to solve a math problem, his fingers are so unsure unbuttoning Shane’s jeans. He only barely gets the button undone before Shane touches Ryan to make him gasp and close his eyes against the rising tide slamming within his chest. “Wait,” Ryan says, scrabbling at Shane’s jeans again. “I need these _off,_ ” he grunts. Shane hitches his waist up to twist out of them, Ryan reaching for Shane’s underwear, preening a bit when he sees they’re damp in the front — he teases Shane, touching him through the cotton. “This all because of little old me?” he says, unable to hide the pride in his voice. “Yes. Take them off,” Shane says, his eyes half-closed with lust, reaching to cup Ryan’s jaw, his fingers brushing his earlobe. “Please,” he adds, when he remembers his Midwestern upbringing.

Ryan does, then he wraps his hand around Shane’s cock, teasing fingers under the head and gingerly trying to find an angle that isn’t awkward. Shane watches him explore, his hair fallen in his eyes, his face a wreck of need, then lunges up to him to kiss along Ryan’s neck. His panting as he nips at Ryan’s earlobe makes Ryan so, so hard. Ryan passes his hands over the tip, using the precome to slick along Shane’s length, but he wants this to be good for Shane. He looks around hesitantly, then asks, “I don’t suppose you packed any uh, supplies?” Shane nods toward the hallway, “Red bag. Outside pocket. Hurry back.”

Ryan arrives back in the bed with a bottle of lube, triumphant, and finds the gentle rhythm he sets up, stroking the length of Shane, turning into something much more urgent as Shane touches him everywhere, saying his name over and over again. “Let me see you, Shane. Wanna see you,” Ryan whispers, studying every angle of Shane’s body, the way he’s laid out underneath him, vulnerable and trusting. Shane scrunches his eyes closed and Ryan feels that familiar tug on his heart that he only has for Shane. Shane comes in Ryan’s hand and on his stomach, shuddering and whispering things Ryan can’t decipher.

The next thing he knows, Shane has pressed Ryan on his back on the bed. He kneels between Ryan’s thighs and kisses his way over Ryan’s pubic bone. When he takes Ryan in his mouth, Ryan clutches the sheets underneath him and makes noises he doesn’t recognize. Shane teases around the head, the warmth and wet of his mouth sending sparks through Ryan, then he sets a rhythm with his long hands and tongue that has Ryan’s body tensing like a spring, tighter and tighter, his fingers threading through Shane’s long hair. Shane looks up at him with his beautiful brown eyes, his lips wrapped around Ryan’s cock, and Ryan didn’t know he could be that loud when he comes.

Shane cuddles up beside Ryan and puts an arm around him and the last thing Ryan remembers is the feeling of Shane nuzzling a kiss on the top of his head as he drops off to sleep.

~~~

Ryan wakes a few hours later from the sunshine brightening the room. Napping the morning away has given him an odd feeling of coming unstuck in time. Shane is sleeping so heavily he can untangle himself from Shane’s arms and legs without waking him. He closes the window blinds to darken the room for Shane and goes to shower and raid the kitchen. While he’s making himself a sandwich, Shane emerges sleepily from the room, detours to lay a kiss on the side of Ryan’s neck, and heads to the shower. They eat sandwiches at the kitchen table, then retreat to the bedroom with snacks and a laptop. They spend the rest of the afternoon and evening alternating between making out and watching movies.

~~~

Shane has a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs laid out on the kitchen counter and he is sliding a griddle pan onto the stove when Ryan ambles in. “French toast sound good?” Shane asks, stirring things busily.

Always,” Ryan says. “Anything I can do to help?”

Shane looks around the kitchen. “If you can get plates on the table that’d be great.”

Ryan finds the plates, the silverware, and the maple syrup. He grins when he finds the Knott’s boysenberry jam Shane had obviously brought along for him.

When Ryan finishes placing everything on the table, he watches Shane concentrating on the toast sizzling in the pan, pressing it with a turner. Ryan crosses the kitchen to drape himself along Shane’s back and cradle Shane’s skinny hips in his hands. He goes up on tiptoes, pressing his face into Shane’s hair, scented with woodsmoke, to kiss the knob at the top of his spine. Shane leans backwards into Ryan’s chest. “What are you doing, you madman,” Shane sighs.

“Helping with breakfast,” Ryan insists brattily, as he peppers the back of Shane’s neck with kisses. Ryan cups Shane’s ass with his hands. “See? I’m helping so much.” Shane playfully grumbles, low in his chest.

They sit down at the wooden table and argue good-naturedly over whether french toast is better with boysenberry jam or maple syrup. Ryan takes pieces of Shane’s french toast off his plate with his fork and eats them, snickering. He puts jam on Shane’s already maple-syruped french toast.

After he escalates by settling in Shane’s lap and feeding slices of the now-jammy french toast to him with his fork, Ryan finds himself making out with Shane on the kitchen floor.

 _Breakfast is the best,_ he thinks, lying on the hard floor and twisting his fingers through Shane’s hair as Shane tongues his left nipple until it hardens into a pink peak.

~~~

Shane hands Ryan a pair of binoculars and leads the way to the grassy yard, toting a tattered copy of The Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds. They spend an hour or two paging through the book and trying to match the pictures to the birds they see. When Ryan successfully identifies a black-capped chickadee, Shane’s heart swells with so much love he thinks it might burst.

When Ryan lays his head on Shane’s shoulder because this is something they do now, Shane looks down at Ryan’s eyelashes and asks Ryan to fuck him in the third, largest bedroom.

Ryan laughs in a cackle that Shane can feel through his arm. “You got it, Goldilocks,” he says.

Shane grouses. “I wasn’t the one who had the idea to try out all the beds — that was you! Wait, if I’m Goldilocks, does that make you the three bears?”

Ryan nudges his chin into Shane’s shoulder. “The apex predator. I’ll take it.” He bares his teeth at Shane, then takes his hand. “Now get into the bedroom,” he says, tugging Shane indoors.

~~~

Ryan made yellow popcorn in the Whirley-Pop Shane had packed into their camping supplies (necessary). Shane is lying across the sofa morosely. Ryan pushes Shane’s legs so he can sit at the end of the sofa. He starts tossing popcorn kernels into Shane’s mouth.

“You know we have to talk about this,” Ryan says. He throws and misses. “I want to date you. I want to be _with_ you.”

Shane gazes at Ryan dejectedly. “We can’t.”

Ryan’s face falls. “Do you not want to?”

“No, Ryan, don’t — “ he flounders, “I mean I don’t mean it like that, Ryan, yes, of course I want to date you. There’s nothing in the world I want more.”

Ryan pops a kernel in his mouth and chews, mulling it over. “Okay, then, why can’t we?”

“There’s a whole list of reasons — ”

“You and your lists,” Ryan scoffs. “Sure, okay, continue.”

“One, we can’t risk the company. We work together.”

Ryan shrugs and tosses another popcorn at Shane’s mouth. “We’re equals at the company. And we’ve always worked well together at the office. Now we’ll just work well together in the bedroom, and uh, other rooms, too.”

Shane bites back a grin.

“Two, it’s not fair to do that to Steven. How fair is it to make him square up against a couple?” 

Ryan tilts his head and squints at Shane. “He was already doing that before. Did you really not notice? I’m sure there will be nothing different about making decisions at the company if we’re a couple.”

“Three, people depend on us. We can’t do this to our employees,” Shane says.

Ryan chucks another piece of popcorn at Shane’s head. It bounces off his forehead and lands somewhere on the floor.

“Hmm. I see. Well, let’s see what happens,” Ryan gets his cellphone off the coffee table and dials someone. Shane tenses with worry. Ryan hits the button for speakerphone and puts the phone on the table.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Katie!” Ryan warbles. Shane makes flailing gestures from the other side of the couch.

“Hey, Ryan, why are you calling in while you’re on vacation? What’s up?”

“I’m here with Shane, and we have some news.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Katie replies. Shane covers his mouth with both hands.

“Shane and I, we’re dating now,” Ryan says.

“Wait, you weren’t already?” Katie sounds puzzled. Ryan and Shane’s eyes meet. Shane’s jaw drops open. Ryan’s smile is deeply amused.

“No, Katie, we weren’t,” Ryan confirms. Shane sits up and leans toward the phone. “Wait a minute — are you telling me that when you signed on to work at Watcher, you thought we were already, you know, _together_ together?”

“...Yes, I did,” Katie responds.

“I mean, good for you guys! Congratulations!” she hurriedly adds.

“Thank you,” Ryan says. There’s a pause in the conversation.

“Um, do you actually have anything else important you need me to know or can I get back to work now?” Katie asks.

“Nope, nope, sorry, hey thanks for listening, and thanks for all your hard work, bye Katie!” Ryan hits the button to hang up and bursts into laughter.

Shane is blushing. “I guess joke’s on us, Ryan.”

Ryan is wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, it really is.”

  


“All right, so there are no more objections to us going steady? Do the kids even say that anymore?” Ryan picks up Shane’s legs and puts them in his lap. He eats a handful of popcorn.

“Just one left,” Shane says. “I can’t lose my best friend.”

Ryan nods and looks away. “I think we’re all adults here, and even if we have a relationship and it doesn’t work out — which I can’t imagine ever happening with the way I feel about you — we can talk it through like the adults we are.”

He turns to look at Shane. “I’ll always care about you,” Ryan says, his eyes watery.

Shane takes Ryan’s hand and kisses the back of his hand and then his knuckles.

“When did you get to be so mature?” Shane asks.

“Therapy, Shane. I go to therapy,” Ryan says.

Shane kisses his nose.

“Go to therapy, Shane,” Ryan says, “and you too could stop letting your brain tie yourself in knots.”

“Mmm. Doesn’t sound like a real thing that could happen.”

Ryan splutters in outrage as Shane puts a handful of popcorn in Ryan’s mouth before he can argue.

  


Shane lies back down across the couch again, tucking his legs behind Ryan.

Ryan puts the popcorn bowl on the table and takes a deep breath.

“I guess what I’m saying is,” Ryan looks out the window, “If you change your mind — I’m the first in line.”

Shane goes open-mouthed. “You’re not — _no,_ ” he says in a strangled voice.

Ryan stretches himself along Shane’s body to nestle between Shane and the couch back. He’s straining to keep a straight face but his smile is breaking through anyway.

“Honey, I’m still free. Take a chance on me,” he says.

Shane full-body laughs and the vibration under Ryan warms him right down to his toes. “Fuck you, and your fuckin’ Abba lyrics — you’re such a weirdo. Fine! You win! We’re dating now — come here, you maniac,“ and he holds Ryan’s face and kisses him until he can’t remember a time when Shane wasn’t kissing him.

~~~

Ryan finishes his stretching and pushups and a quick run at dusk and comes back to find the cabin empty. There’s smoke pluming from the campfire out back, so he pulls on an orange hoodie and heads there.

Shane is lying down, his long body flat along a bench seat next to the campfire. He’s looking straight overhead, occasionally referring to a stargazing app on his phone and muttering.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks, standing over him.

“I promised myself I’d figure out how to really see the Cygnus constellation. I can find it okay, but it’s supposed to look like a swan, and it never did to me.” Shane hands his phone over to Ryan, who holds it up to the sky to find the right stars.

“I just see a triangle,” Ryan says.

Yeah, well, it’s also called the Northern Cross. There’s two dimmer stars that make it into a cross shape.”

Ryan looks at the app and at the sky again. “Oh, yeah,” he goes high-pitched. “I definitely see the cross shape now.”

The stars are getting brighter as their eyes adjust and the night breezes blow in. Ryan hands the phone back to Shane, who waves it around, reading off it.

“So the really bright star, Deneb, is the swan’s tail, this says. He’s flying downwards,” Shane says.

Ryan settles himself lying flat on another bench angled next in the circle to Shane’s bench, making contented noises.

“And the dim star, Albireo, is the swan’s head. And then the two stars on each side are the wings.”

They both look at the shimmering sky intently for what feels like a long time. The campfire crackles and throws sparks. Ryan crosses his arms and snuggles down into his hoodie.

Shane makes a choked noise while looking at his star app. Ryan stretches his arm alongside his own head, reaching to the next bench over to rub affectionately at Shane’s scalp. “Are you okay?”

Shane silently hands the phone over. Ryan reads the text on the screen.

> _...Albireo is the head of the swan Cygnus. It’s a favorite of astronomers because this star holds a secret. When viewed with a telescope, it reveals itself to be a double star system: one blue and one yellow, which orbit each other with an extremely long orbit with a period of possibly 75,000 years._

“One blue and one yellow.”

“Greek myth is overrated. I love science,” Shane says, with a catch in his voice.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Shane says. Ryan pushes the edge of his hoodie and tilts his head to see Shane smiling, his hands tucked across his chest.

Ryan hands the phone back and thinks about asking again. Then his stomach rumbles.

  


“...So — s’mores time?”

~~~

The last morning of vacation dawns cloudy and golden. Ryan has run out of clean t-shirts so he’s wearing one of Shane’s — **_Chicago_** is spelled out in large letters across his chest. It smells like Shane’s laundry detergent. Ryan thinks he’s going to wear it home and forget to give it back for a long time.

They’re halfway through packing up the cabin when Ryan says, “I can make a campfire now, but I never did learn how to tie knots or anything. Guess I don’t qualify for an eagle scout patch, huh.”

Shane’s eyes widen and he covers his grin with his hand. “I completely forgot. Wait here a minute.” He rustles through an outside pocket of a backpack while Ryan looks on curiously. Whatever Shane finds, he hides behind his back and approaches Ryan hesitantly.

“When you said you wanted a badge, before the trip, I did think about it, and well.” Shane swallows. “Turns out vintage scout patches were easy to find on ebay. Seems a little inappropriate now, but. I thought it would be funny.” He holds his hands out to Ryan. On his palms are two identical large round embroidered patches. Each has a blue tent embroidered in the center on a white background. In blue-stitched text wrapped around the top of each patch, it reads **1958 CAMPOREE** in bold block letters.

Ryan snatches one up. “Inappropriate? What are you talking about,” he locks eyes with Shane. “I love it. Thank you.” Shane smiles, happy to have pleased Ryan, and his chest fills up with indescribable warmth.

~~~

When they film the next season of **Weird And/Or Wonderful World (with Shane and Ryan)** , the matching patches are stitched onto their khaki shirts; Shane’s on the right sleeve just above the elbow, Ryan’s on his left sleeve. Every time the fans submit a question asking why in the world they have patches from a 1958 camp event stitched to their jackets, neither Shane nor Ryan ever acknowledge seeing the question.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Albireo: A Bright and Beautiful Double (NASA photo)](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050830.html)


End file.
